


the scene at the bottom of the stairwell

by ratkings



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Stozier, Substance Abuse, also very depressing at first at least, comphet, i promise for real it’ll be happy, lounge singer eddie, pining richie, pretty heavy depression stuff, slight stozier, this is heavily reddie focused, writer richie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:29:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25372426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratkings/pseuds/ratkings
Summary: "Richie Tozier is not a happy man. He communicates his darkness eloquently, aggressively, and without shame. One of the most important writers of our time." -WILLIAM DENBROUGH, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Attic Room"Tozier's debut poetry anthology forces readers into a brutal self-reflection. It leaves you no room to breathe. Read it once, then read it again." -BETTY RIPSOM, author of Beneath the Tired City"richard wentworth tozier is a son of a bitch and a motherfucker and a poor excuse for a human being. everything's he's lost he abandoned, and he's lost everything. his writing is not anthemic. it's not even good. it's a purulent sore that you all poke at sadistically to see what might leak out. he lives inside of his own head. he'll never escape. it's what he deserves." -RICHARD TOZIER, bestselling author of Fixation, meadow garden., and Encyclopedia of Diseases
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Reddie - Relationship, Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris, Stozier - Relationship
Comments: 7
Kudos: 23





	1. The Crooner at the HopCat, alternatively titled He Who Hath Undone Me

**Author's Note:**

> i am not gonna lie, i wrote this in a fever and decided i loved the concept of sad as fuck author richie tozier falling in love with dissatisfied and angry lounge singer eddie kaspbrak. i am about 99.9% sure no one is going to read this or remotely enjoy it, BUT i had fun writing it and that's what matters! as of right now i expect to write this fully from richie's perspective, but i'm also trying to figure out a good way of including "notes," like shit he writes in the margins. that way i'll be able to include notes from the other losers, too.
> 
> YEAH, this is written in first person (richie's pov)! yes i know thats supposedly a fan fiction sin! i would've made this a twitter smau, honestly, but i couldn't really come up with a solid way to format it. maybe in the future it'll be adapted for that! idk.
> 
> this whole thing is pretty heavily inspired by richard siken's writing. that's the origin of the title, too. enjoy!

I remember the reason why my 35th birthday felt so monumental. It was because it was the day that I realized I’d never have to write another love letter again. There was a beautiful and arctic resignation to that thought.

Love ends at 35. You either have it or you don’t have it, and if you don’t have it, you never will. I have friends who would say that this is the depression talking. But those friends are the same ones who would tell me not to write when I’m drunk, which is the worst advice in the world. I owe the booze my career. And it owes me a new liver, so we call it even.

I will admit that in the endless cynicism of my 40s I forgot what it felt like to have a crush. It’s a good word, ‘crush,’ a word that sounds like how it feels. When I saw him, my heart didn’t grow. It shrunk to the size of a pinhole, and it trembled inside of my chest like it was afraid, made small beneath the weight of a long-neglected emotion. To want something is commonplace, typical, not worth a paragraph. To want someone? That’s what we write poems about.

I remember when I would see a pretty face on the subway after work and become obsessed. I remember how back then I would write a story in my head, one that always ended with the two of us together. Me and this stranger, usually someone in a leather jacket, usually someone with earbuds in and music up high enough for me to catch the tinny waltz of Elliot Smith and wonder _who hurt you_? I always fell for the Atlas types, men who understood that some burdens were worth bearing. Men who knew how and when to hold on.

It wasn’t unusual for me, in my 20s, to think like a romantic. At 41, it was. And even stranger still, I can’t stop fucking thinking about him. He doesn’t go away; it's not like how it used to be. Once those subway doors opened and I was vomited back into the world, I would be instantly busied with other thoughts. More important ones.

Maybe the problem is that I don’t have that much to think about anymore. I mean, I’ve thought it all already. Maybe the problem is that I want to tell someone all the things I’ve thought instead of writing them down and selling them to be trimmed and fixed by people much smarter than me. I’m sick of anthologies. Conversations with myself. Literary captivity. I exist inside of this glass canyon, where I can throw my words but they always come right back to me, and everyone on the outside is only watching because the whole display feels too tragic to turn away from.

I won’t say that I’m not tired. I won’t say that I’m not lonely and that I’m not sad, because I am all of those things. Those and more and more and more. But when I saw him, I felt myself becoming something else, too.

Hopeful, I think? Yeah. I think he gave me hope.

God, he sang beautifully. And no one paid any attention but me. He seemed like the kind of person who liked to be ignored. The stage was dramatically dim and I wondered if he had requested that it be that way. I moved closer, to see him better. I wanted to see his mouth move around every vowel and consonant. I wanted to see if he struggled, if he sweat. Of course he didn’t. Up there, he was perfect. Untouchable. On display.

_I know how this feels._

He sang Chet Baker. “ _I fall in love too easily, I fall in love too fast_.” For a moment, his eyes met mine. He seemed startled—only for a moment, though, spun out by the idea that someone might actually be listening. He curled the microphone cord around his finger and looked away. I saw his jaw clench. His voice remained perfect, cutting through the smoky haze of the club like it was nothing. He looked away. I felt completely and suddenly invisible.

There are going to be times when you want so badly to be seen by someone who only wants to look away. There are going to be times like that. And when that happens, there’s only so much you can do.

1\. Down your drink.

2\. Toss the last of your money into the Tupperware container at the edge of the stage.

3\. Go back to your hotel room, slumped and old and tired.

4\. Remove all of your clothes.

5\. Remove your heart.

Note: You will be careless. You will leave a big mess behind. You’ll hold it in both hands. You will be naked. You will be drunker than you thought you were. You’ll call out to the crooner at the HopCat Lounge and you will ask him—no, you’ll beg him—to take your heart, _take it, take the damn thing, it belongs to you now_. And you’ll think, you know, maybe it always did. Who knows?

I know that it never felt right inside of me. It never felt right to call it mine.

*

I've decided this is terrible. This thing I'm trying to write, whatever I'm trying to convey here just isn't worth the trouble.

Stan disagrees. I talked to him this morning on my way to the airport. He sounded disappointed which isn't surprising, but still. Stanley Uris is my least favorite person in the world to disappoint, hands down. Maybe because of the absolute magnitude of the ways in which I've let him down. Catastrophic, that. No number of _I loved you, okay, I really did_ , will ever pull the pain out of the obligatory 'but' that follows that statement. I wish I could stop dwelling on it. God. Fuck.

Anyway. Stan disagrees. On the phone he says, "What you just read to me sounds good. I mean, it sounds like you, right? That's all anybody wants, Rich. They just want your voice. They're practically gagging for it."

"My Uber driver didn't seem very impressed."

"No way did you just read that whole thing out loud in your Uber."

"You want to me to say I didn't? You want me to lie?"

The sound of Stan's impatient sigh on the other end makes me smile. Talk about squandered opportunity.

"I don't know why you put up with me."

Stan laughs like I've said something funny. I don't feel like I have.

"Being serious."

"Okay, Rich. What do you want me to say? I put up with you because I love you. Is that what you want? Validation?"

He sounds angry, but not the angriest. Stan's been _angry_ at me before. He's trembled with the weight of his anger at me. Titanic rage. Scary stuff. Vaguely sexy, though.

"Yeah, obviously." I shrug despite his inability to see it. He'll know. "I require constant validation. You know that better than anybody."

"Right." Another sigh, deep enough to dizzy him. "Text me when you land, alright? We'll get dinner or something."

"God, fuck yeah. Okay. Will do. You're the best, Stanley."

"I'm adequate. Be seeing you."

It's possible that Stan is right, at least moderately. After Fixation came out, I stopped feeling like I really needed to try. That was the point at which I became seen. My worst nightmare realized. All of these people, with their scraping eyes and their fingers sending me critiques I didn't ask for, all of these strangers suddenly knew who I was and I couldn't come back from that. Once you're seen, it's impossible to become invisible again.

Reminds me of what I was thinking about earlier, in the HopCat where I obsessed over the man with the eyes like melted copper. All of a sudden, a thousand eyes on me. I didn't ask for anyone to look. I didn't invite them to pull away the curtain and judge me like an abject art installation, a statue someone made out of flesh and thread. Everyone asked for a meaning. And when I didn't answer, they made up their own.

Truth be told, there was never any purpose to begin with. I was always a writer and I never felt like I needed a reason for that. I stopped for a long time and only started again to try and keep myself from getting bad. And it saved me, but not in the way that I thought it would. Less New Lease On Life, more Man On His Deathbed Takes One Last Shuddering Breath Before He Goes To God.

I think I'm getting bad again, though. I think things are starting to fall apart around me again. I think the ecstasy of the hope I felt when I saw the singer at the HopCat made the crash of reality that much worse. I'm not blaming him. I mean, I'm sort of blaming him, but in a funny and self-aware kind of way. I don't even know his name. Why didn't I find out his name? Why didn't I fucking talk to him? Why do I feel so terrible about it? Why do I feel like I've lost something without ever having had it in the first place?

Tonight, I will meet Stan Uris for dinner. I'll let him scold me for drinking too much, even though he smokes too much. I'll make him laugh, buy him another glass of wine, admire the pale freckles on the ridge of his nose until he swats at me and tells me to "stop staring, freak." I'll tell him I'm doing okay. It doesn't matter whether or not that's true. What matters is that he believes it.


	2. The Universe Wants Us to Destroy Each Other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some ppl seemed to like the first chapter, which was very nice and encouraging and i appreciate it so much! here is chapter 2! i think its ok! mostly set up for future stuff. i hope u like it!! its not very long so i apologize for that.
> 
> p.s. shout out to my best friend han for helping w plot stuff and with a few of eddie's dialogue lines. follow her @epicfunnyclown on twitter :0

Providence [ **prov** -i- _duh_ ns]. Noun.

  1. It’s the way that hope turns quickly into faith when fed and watered, when placed halfway in the sun.
  2. I haven’t believed in miracles since I was young enough to buy into things I couldn’t see. But I turned my body into a bunker for this very reason. If they can’t see me, I’m not real.
  3. This isn’t my fault. You can’t blame me for this. Don’t get angry when you find me under your skin. We’re both guilty. We’re both on trial.
  4. The universe wants us to destroy each other.



*

“Ed. Nice to meet you.”

Of course your name is only one syllable long. It makes me squirm, my obnoxious itching need to pad it with extra letters. Eds. Eduardo. Spagh-Eddie. Just to name a few.

“Richie Tozier. I write books, too. Mine aren’t as good.”

Bill shoots me a look and then turns, fluidly, back to the young woman in front of him rambling ineloquently about his latest bestseller. _Your book changed my life._ Imagine that.

You don’t know this, Ed, but I’m panicking right in front of you. I can’t believe you’re here. I feel like I manifested you somehow. I feel like I’m hallucinating. How the fuck is this possible? Why didn’t Bill ever mention you to me? How are you _here_?

Your eyes are half-lidded and you have this perpetually bored look about you, like no one’s said anything interesting to you in years. I know how that feels. There is so much I want to say to you. You’re the reason I’ve started writing again. You’re the subject. You have no idea.

“I’ve seen your stuff. I mean, I’ve never read it. I don’t read much of Bill’s stuff either, though. Nothing personal. I’m picky.”

 _Oh, totally, yeah, I don’t even give a shit_ , I think. Like a liar.

“Not a problem. Better that way, honestly. I wouldn’t read my stuff if I didn’t have to.”

You snort at that, and I’m internally pumping my fist in celebration. I feel like you’re not the kind of person who laughs often; it takes a lot for you to break character. I want to make you laugh so badly. You look like you’re dreaming, even as you’re sitting here and talking to me. What do you dream about, Eddie? Do you dream in measures the way I dream in stanzas?

“What do you do, Ed?”

I feel slimy for acting like I don’t already know. But there’s good reason for that, alright? I know you didn’t recognize me when I sat down. You’re not pretending you don’t know me. I have to be one of a hundred men who have gazed up at you with bedroom eyes and willed you to jump off stage into my arms. To clarify, though, it wasn’t bedroom like There’s A Jacuzzi In My Suite With Your Name On It, it was more like I Bought A Hall Tree For My Apartment Four Years Ago But I Really Only Own One Jacket So What I’m Saying Is There’s Room For You To Hang Yours Up If You Want.

“Nothing special. I’m a jazz singer. I look at other people’s music and sing it worse, work off tips, then go home. That’s it. Or I sit with Bill at his book signings because he likes my company.” You punctuate your monologue by elbowing Bill softly. Bill grunts in response. Gives you a knowing look.

I know it’s fucked up of me to feel jealous of that. I hate that Bill has a rapport with you that I’m not a part of.

I open my mouth to tell you not to undersell yourself because I’ve seen you, Ed, I know what the fuck you’re capable of.

“Nothing special my ass. Eds, you’re amazing.”

I’m gonna kill William Denbrough.

“Please. You flatter me. If I was so special I wouldn’t be living in a studio apartment above a fucking library with a roommate who, like, actually effectively contributes to society.”

“Mike is pretty great.”

“God, don’t I know it.”

I’m watching you throw a verbal football back and forth, watching your words sail right over my head, just out of reach. I’m the monkey in the middle. I am so far removed from whatever it is you are but I so badly want you to let me in.

“A library?” That’s my contribution. Great. At least it makes you look at me, though. Your eyes say _I forgot you were even here_.

“Mhm.” You lean back in your chair, folding your hands in your lap. You’re wearing a watch that looks too expensive for me. Analog, not digital. Classy.

“That’s interesting. I live in a former psychiatric hospital. They used to do ghost tours.”

You smile. Holy shit, Ed, you smile and I remember I’m alive. You have this over-pronounced cupid’s bow that I want to reach out and trace with my index finger. You shake your head and I panic momentarily, sure that you’ve just read my thoughts.

“You ever see any ghosts in there?”

Tons, but not the kind you’re thinking of.

“Not yet. I thought a poltergeist pissed in my kitchen sink once but it turned out it was just drunk me leaving a special surprise for the morning after.”

“Fucking ew.”

Bill is chuckling, and you’re scowling, and I’m grinning because that scowl is so fucking cute. I like disgusting you almost as much as I like making you smile.

“Oh, hey, Bill.” You lean forward suddenly, reaching down to fish something out of your faux-leather saddle bag. Of course you have one of those. The thing you pull out is a flyer, decorated elegantly in a cursive font. An advertisement.

_Eddie Kaspbrak does Sinatra. One night only at The Grand Belvedere._

Bill’s eyes practically bulge out of his head and I have no idea why. I'm beginning to think I'm way less cultured than I've been led to believe.

“You landed the fucking Belvedere? Jesus, Ed, why didn’t you tell me?”

As much as I want to give Bill a black eye right now for reasons unexplainable, I’m eternally grateful that his reaction lands the way it does. You turn light pink, you even laugh a little. This small, nervous, chiming laugh. I’m losing my mind. I am losing my damn mind and it is your fault.

“I’m telling you now! You should come, if you’re not busy—”

“I’d come even if I was. Rich, you should go to this, too. You have to see Ed do his thing, he’s incredible.”

“Stop—"

“Eddie?”

The conversation halts. I’m looking at the flyer, then at you. Your eyes narrow, flashing with indignation.

“It’s a stage name. Eddie’s…it’s jazzier than Ed.”

“Yeah, it is. It suits you. Two syllables.”

“…What?”

I shake my head. “Nothing. I just think it suits you.”

You give me a look that I can’t quite decipher. Are you curious? Am I the reason for the crease between your brows? Bill seems amused.

“Did I say something fucked up?”

“No, no. I actually kind of like how it sounds when you say it,” you’re smiling again, goddamnit, my heart is in a vice grip. “You can have Eddie privileges.”

“I’m honored.”

I’m sweating. I am not yet fluent in your body's language. I'm overwhelmed by the rapid cycle of your facial expressions. I think you must feel things that I can't feel. I think you must feel with an intensity I can't match. Are you trying to figure me out, Eddie Kaspbrak? Are you trying to learn my language, too?

You get up to leave about five minutes later, hastily. Rehearsal, you say. Bill nods knowingly. I nod because Bill’s nodding. Just before you go, you give me a harsh look. Again, unreadable. My brain tells me I must be in trouble. I'm used to severity and I know what follows a look like that. I've messed up somehow. I've made a terrible impression. I stepped without thinking and crushed something important beneath my foot.

“Are you going to come?”

_...What?_

“What?”

“To the show at the Belvedere. Will you be there?”

Holy shit, Eddie, I can't predict you. I'm fascinated, of course, but I'm so fucking frustrated. I feel like a high schooler. I'm genuinely considering passing you a note that says Do You Like Me, Yes or No?

“Sure, of course. Sounds like a rockin’ good time.” Translation: If I don't show up, it's because I'm literally dead. That is the only reason I would have to miss this.

You snort again and now I’m cursing myself. Bill got a laugh and all I got was two snorts and a handful of scowls. At least it’s something. Something for me to dwell on for the next week.

“Later, then. Bill, text me.”

“Will do.”

You leave and I watch you walk away for as long as you're still in sight. I’m trying to memorize you, trying to imagine your body pressed between two pages like a marigold, trying to preserve this moment of Eddie, this version. That's the thing about people. They're different every time you see them, you know? Even in small ways. What if you get a haircut before I see you next? What if you decide that you're going to start wearing sunglasses all the time? I have to remember this You. I want to. I want to remember this draft, before it's revised.

“He’s pretty great, huh?”

Bill is talking. Bill’s here. Right.

“Uh-huh. He’s…yeah. Remarkable.”

“Just wait till you see him perform,” he says, side-eyeing me like he knows something I don’t want him to.

“Seriously. You’re gonna fall in love.”


	3. A Living Room, a One-Act Play, a Funeral Tie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wow i updated this finally dsfkjasdj;fg. ummm no real notes for this one, i plan on updating more regularly tho because i really like writing this it turns out! follow me on twitter @balloonanimal47 <3
> 
> overly specific trigger warnings: a break-up, relationship turmoil, a bruise caused by a thrown book, Being A Shitty Person, jokes about funerals

I’m thinking about that night, two years ago in the summer, when all my bullshit finally caught up to me.

The sky turned bright yellow in the evening, our whole living room gilded, biblical. That was back when it was still our living room, back when we shared a space. Back when all your books slept on my shelves. Back when our bodies still slotted together in bed like we were carved for each other by hand. Back when we’d lay there, dog-eared, folding over one another until our limbs would light up with static, until gravity forced us to remove ourselves from the jigsaw.

Stan screamed at me that night, loud enough for God and all our neighbors to hear. He threw my own book in my face. Encyclopedia of Diseases. The one that was about him, almost entirely. The one where I put him under a microscope, dissected him without his permission. A book full of the things I wasn’t brave or decent enough to say out loud.

SCENE ZERO – INT. EARLY EVENING

STANLEY paces back and forth across the dingy hardwood, over and over. He’s been doing this for an hour. Maybe he’s been doing this forever. RICHIE sits on the floor with his back against a bookcase and his own novel in his hands. The one that STANLEY threw just moments before. A bruise, an accident, blooming high up on his cheek.

STANLEY

You have a fucking problem, Richie.

RICHIE

I know.

STANLEY

No, shut up. I’m talking now. I get to talk. You love to be the victim, and you’d rather put people down and make money for it than do anything to make yourself better. You said that I—you wrote that I was—

RICHIE

Stan, please—

STANLEY

Fuck! Fuck, Rich, was this really all for nothing? Is this your bullshit artsy way of breaking up with me? If I’m so… _forgettable_ , then why don’t you just forget about the whole fucking thing.

The camera pans in on the open book in RICHIE’s lap. Page 27. _Forget-me-not [fər-ˈget-mē-ˌnät]. Noun._

STANLEY

I’m forgettable, okay, you’ve had better lays than me. I’m nothing but a place to “bury your guilt.” I’m not a fucking graveyard—and DON’T WRITE THAT DOWN!

RICHIE

I’m sorry.

He’s apologizing for the wrong thing. He’s apologizing because of course he’s going to write that down. It’s all he’s good for. It’s all he knows how to do.

RICHIE

I’m sorry for being this person. If I felt like I could be anything else, I’d be that instead. I love you and I care for you but—but this comes with the fucking territory and maybe you should’ve known that. Alright? You’ve read the shit I write, Stan, you’ve published it for God’s sake. But this isn’t even about that, and I know. It’s about me, and I’m not my books. It’s about me and my problems and my weird need to hurt and be hurt and to wallow in that shit. I’m fucking self-aware, Stanley. I’m that, at least.

STANLEY

And you’re fucking selfish.

STAN begins to shovel RICHIE’s things into a plastic trash bag. When he’s finished, he throws it at RICHIE’s feet.

STANLEY

Apparently not self-aware enough to know that you are so, so selfish. You’re saying I should’ve expected all this going into a _loving relationship?_ Do you have any idea how much I changed for you? How much I tried to work my life around for you because I loved you? And now when I finally try to speak up about how fucking hurtful you can be, it’s like I don’t even have a right to because it ‘comes with the territory.’ God.

STAN begins to cry. He doesn’t want to, but who ever does?

STANLEY

I love you, Richie, way too much. But I can’t keep sacrificing things I don’t have.

Fade to black.

I remember every word he said that night. You’d think that maybe the remembering would help me to learn from it. You’d think that.

All I’ve learned is regret. All I’ve learned is that you can be haunted by someone who isn’t dead. You can see their ghost doing dishes in the kitchen sink, in the living room bathed in the blue TV light, in the bathtub nursing a sweaty can of Bud Lite.

There are ghosts in this apartment, but I put them here. There are living memories.

Memories that breathe.

*

Eddie Kaspbrak does Sinatra. One night only.

I carpool with Bill to the Belvedere. It’s fancier than I’d anticipated. Despite the suit I still feel underdressed. There’s a fucking valet. I hate valet. There’s an intimacy to handing over your car keys to someone, to dropping them into another person’s palm, a silent assurance of trust. I don’t trust a fucking valet.

“So how did you meet him?” It’s me asking, the cat that curiosity killed.

“Ed? We actually met in college. He got in a heated argument with our Western Civ professor 15 minutes into the first class and I followed him out when he stormed off.”

“Jesus. An argument about _what_?”

“The guy misspelled ‘gentrification’ in the syllabus. Ed couldn’t let it go.”

 _Can’t let things go_. I scribble that down in my head. I’m keeping a laundry list of Kaspbrakian quirks.

I’m wondering if we would have been friends in college. Honestly, it’s not likely. I was still in the closet then, unwilling to be seen even in small ways. Insufferably miserable. Were you always your daydreamy self, perpetually stuck in a staring contest with nothing in particular? I try to imagine you full of life, like I was in my 20s, dog-toothed grin and hooded private eyes and spitting off the sides of parking garages. It’s not an easy picture to paint, given the man you are now.

“Bill! Richie!”

The second we walk in through the (absurd) gold-plated French doors, you, _Eddie_ , flutter to us like a hummingbird. I peer around you, trying to figure where in the world you came from. Bill gives you a hug and you gives me a long and calculated look.

“I read your book,” you reveal, like you know something. I’m trying to keep my eyes on your face by counting the faint little freckles spaced out irregularly across your cheekbones. _One, two, three…_

“Which one?” I sound dull. Stupid. Flat. So nothing.

“The one about diseases.”

Bill laughs a little, and I feel my stomach turn. Some dumb, bitter part of me hisses _you should’ve asked me first_ , as if Diseases isn’t a bestseller, as if it doesn’t live on the shelves of millions of strangers. That thought makes the nausea worse. I force a thin, wispy smile.

“What’d you—”

“I thought it was brilliant.”

Oh. I look over at Bill, who isn’t looking back at me. Distracted. I turn back to you. You seem to be expecting something.

“Well, thank—”

“I also think you probably have the biggest ego in the world.”

Bill turns back to us immediately, suddenly interested in hearing me be insulted. I laugh, a single sharp sound. You’re right, of course you are. How did you figure that out so fast?

“What makes you think that?”

You smile, a smile that grows until your teeth are showing, a smile that demands to be returned. And then you take a great big step towards me and you reach out and all of a sudden, apropos of nothing, you are fixing my tie.

You’re a half a head shorter than me and your hair smells like mint. You look up at me and my brain tries to wrap itself around your eyes, around how those things could possibly be attached to a real person and how that person could be willingly standing so terribly close to me.

“You should learn how to tie a tie right,” you scold, long fingers flipping the patterned fabric around at what feels like lightning speed. “It’s a useful skill.”

“Sure,” I say, to satiate you, to make you happy. The focused line of your mouth recedes into a half smile as you finish with me. You peer up. Your hand flies to my cheek where it lands softly—if I was clever and confident I might even say it lands _fondly_ —and then you smack me lightly a couple times, a dull playful sting.

“That’s better,” you decide. “Now you look presentable.”

“Do I?”

You’re rolling your eyes at me. You pick up the tail-end of my tie and flick it over my right shoulder. You are so keyed up tonight, Eddie, so full of spit and fire. Is it because of the performance? Nerves? Is it because of me?

“I hate that tie.”

“It’s one of my favorites.”

“Are you serious? Would you wear this to a funeral? It has bananas on it.”

“I don’t go to a lot of funerals—”

“Never buy a tie you wouldn’t wear to a funeral.”

Bill is watching us verbally erode each other like he can’t quite keep up. I laugh at the funeral tie comment and you turn on your heel, huffing your way to a door marked Private.

“Are you mad at me now, Eddie?” I call after you. I am so delighted when you lift up your middle finger, throwing it out behind you to the shock and awe of the old people around us who came to see you perform tonight. I look at Bill, who seems equally shocked. You slam the door behind you.

“What?” I feign innocence, leading us both toward the doors into the auditorium. The lights will start flashing soon, dim and then bright again, to tell us to find our seats. I act as if I didn’t just rile up the main act on purpose. As if nothing’s happened. As if I’m not already putty in your hands.

“I’ve just never seen him act like that,” Bill laughs. We make ourselves small to scoot into the aisle where our seats are located. Good seats, maybe the best in the house. I turn toward the stage. I try to picture you there. Eddie Kaspbrak, one night only.

“He’s probably nervous.” I don’t want to give myself away. My joy, my pride at making you act _differently_. Pulling you out of your stupor, your daydream, jerking you into my world. Your eyes, peering up at me as you retied the knot in my tie, all but shouting _who the fuck are you?_

“I don’t know,” Bill sighs as we settle into place, fading into a collective group of soon-to-be enamored audience members. That feels right in some way, that you’ll be on a pedestal with a spotlight and a microphone and I’ll be in the audience, fighting the current to get a glimpse at you. I turn to Bill, who shrugs.

“Maybe he likes me.” I listen to my own voice bend and lilt when I say that, an attempt to pass off a truth as a joke. I want you to like me. I don’t want anyone to know that.

“God, no offense, Richie, but I hope not.”

“Uh, okay. I’ll pretend it wasn’t offensive then.”

“Richie, the kid’s explosive. He’s a step from the edge and you’re already halfway to the ground. It wouldn’t be a good mix, alright? That’s all I’m saying.”

A step from the edge. Are you unhappy, Eddie? What’s pushing you? Is it gravity or is it something else, something more tangible? And the worst thought of all, the one I think so loudly that I’m sure everyone in this auditorium and his mother hears it,

_Come join me down here. It’s a long, long fall but we can make it feel like just a moment._

“Maybe I can make him happy,” I say instead. It’s such a pathetic comment and it doesn’t mean anything. I know what Bill wants to say, I know that he wants to ask me how I could possibly make somebody else happy when I can’t even do that for myself.

But mercifully the lights begin to blink in and out like dying stars, and Bill nudges my shoulder with his shoulder and whispers,

“ _Shut up. It’s starting_.”


End file.
